Eco-conception | Treebal

Why is digital eco-conception essential ?

Contrary to what one might think, digital technology is not intangible and its environmental impacts are very real. Thus, the digital sector is now responsible for 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions and the sharp increase in usage suggests a 50% growth of this carbon footprint by 2025 according to ADEME. This is why it is essential to take into account the environmental impact of digital solutions from their conception.

The aim of digital eco-conception is to reduce the negative environmental impacts of a product by taking into account all stages of its life cycle.

How is the Treebal application eco-designed?

The environmental dimension was taken into account from the conception of Treebal, from the first "design thinking" workshops to the realization of the application itself, and we are part of a continuous improvement process.

Our R&D teams have been trained in fundamentals of the responsible digital and received Green IT certification. From the very beginning the functional and technical choices responded to an objective of digital sobriety and use in order to limit the environmental footprint of the application :

Optimization of use and functions with the aim of eliminating the unnecessary and minimizing the environmental impact. For example, Messages are, for example, kept for a maximum period of seven days by default, limiting the volume of data stored on the servers. Dark mode or theme is preferred to reduce energy consumption.

Technical optimizations aimed at limiting the consumption of physical resources and therefore the impact of the application on the user’s phone battery.

Choice of an appropriate technical architecture in order to avoid back-and-forths with servers and eliminate unnecessary processing: messages are delivered as close as possible to users.

Work on design and ergonomics in order to strengthen the accessibility of the application

What are the benefits ?

The benefits of eco-conception are multiple :

Environmental impact : as you understood, the first benefit of eco-conception is the control of the environmental impact. The use of Treebal allows to have a lower carbon footprint than using non-eco-designed instant messaging.

Hardware lifespan : Treebal is designed to reduce the amount of resources required for its operation. The first factor of environmental impact being related to the material, Treebal is making it possible to extend the lifespan of electronic material and thus fight against accelerated obsolescence, In addition, Treebal is compatible with older versions of Android and iOS, which also helps keep hardware longer.

User experience : The loading times of the Treebal application and the screens are optimized, considerably and lastingly improving the user experience.

Accessibility of services : the design and ergonomics are optimized to ensure maximum accessibility, especially in the event of visual impairment.

Treebal, the first instant messenger that displays its environmental performance!

In order to measure and continuously improve the environmental performance of the application, we carried out a Life Cycle Analysis (LCA), taking into account the entire life cycle of the application, including the manufacturing and end-of-life stages. To carry out this LCA in the rules of the art, we called on several experts including Boavizta, an inter-organization working group dedicated to measuring the environmental impact of digital organizations.

The process and the report are accessible here (French).

In a process of cooperation and contribution to the development of responsible digital technology, we provide the community with the calculator developed in this context.

Treebal Meet, the eco-responsible video conferencing tool

Most videoconferencing systems offer “the best possible image and sound quality, in high resolution” Treebal Meet takes the opposite view and says that it is not necessary. Just because high resolution bandwidth is available doesn't mean it should be used.

For simplicity, Treebal Meet limits its maximum video resolution to 480p, and considers that a standard quality of 360p is sufficient to render the expected service.

In addition, Treebal Meet limits the number of frames per second of its video streams to 15fps (instead of 20+ usually).

Other savings are also made: only the main interlocutor is in high resolution, the others are standard and within the limit of the last 3 active speakers, the video streams of inactive ones are cut.

Treebal Meet also offers to start a video conference with the camera disabled, so that it is the user who decides whether to activate it afterwards or not.